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THE DIRECTOR
WHAT THE FILM IS ABOUT
by Frédéric Gonseth
The war in Yemen has been long forgotten, and the film does not set out to resurrect it. On the other hand, the action by the International Committee of the Red Cross that grew out of it deserves to be made known. It marked the first breakthrough of humanitarian values in Islamic territory. Since then, the Muslim world's choice of adopting these values or not has remained a central, burning issue.
These first inroads were made in the sixties by André Rochat and his team of ICRC delegates and doctors. Subsequent operations have not always met with the same level of success.
ICRC missions are normally kept confidential. The participants' obligation to treat them as such is vital during operations, but from a historical perspective Rochat's first-hand account as head of the Yemen mission provided a unique opportunity to tell the ICRC's broader story. He related every detail. He had kept documents that ordinarily delegates are required to destroy. He had photographed and filmed many aspects of the adventure. Together with the archives they collected, the film crew had enough material to reconstruct all of the main events.
One of the final challenges was to confront Yemenis themselves with archive images of the civil war and the ICRC operation. By retracing Rochat's footsteps with the mission leader himself − all the way to the Jihannah cave −, the film captures the importance of the ICRC's irreplaceable struggle on behalf of prisoners of war around the world today. (Yemenis are being held at Guantanamo Bay.) Despite this, the director does not hesitate to give a filmmaker’s view of the sometimes abrasive relationship between ICRC headquarters and its field workers.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
of Frédéric Gonseth
Born in 1950 in Lausanne. Married to Catherine Azad. One child, Sémira.
Nationality: Swiss
Languages: French, German, Swiss German, English, Italian, Russian (basics)
Primary and secondary education in Lausanne
1968: high school diploma (scientific section); Edmond Gilliard prize for literature
1972: Degree in sociology from the University of Lausanne
1973-75: interned as a TV news writer in Zurich
1975-80: editor of La Brèche, a militant newspaper
From 1980: independent director-producer certified by Swiss television
Founding member of the Fondation Vaudoise-pour le Cinéma; founding member and current president of the Association Romande du Cinéma (ARC); founding member and president of the Archimob association
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